Straightforward communication… and direct communication… are both positive signs of an alpha mentality. When you level up and start gaining the boldness and tenacity it requires to be an alpha-minded human, your communication style is going to change.
I speak to this directly in the 10th vow of The Oath of Kings And Queens.
“I vow to practice honesty, and to recognize lies, manipulation, and avoidances for the manifestations of the weaknesses they stem from.”
In other words; the alpha mentality requires that we communicate honestly and directly. We don’t lie, we don’t manipulate, and we don’t avoid confrontation. Why? Because all of these behaviors cause us to give our power away. We should be standing boldly in our honesty, holding others to the high standards we deserve for ourselves, and seeking to be as efficient as possible with our communication.
As you level-up in the alpha mentality and focus on this vow, you’ll likely find that you’ll go from being a passive-aggressive, beta-minded b*tch, to being a strong, fearless, straightforward communicator.
And I’ve got news for you. This will greatly increase your happiness and confidence in life. It will make you feel powerful and alive. There is no substitute for bold, straightforward communication.
But… This communication style will also make it harder to work with others… at least at first.
More and more often, I’m becoming aware of the fact that the alpha mentality doesn’t vibe well with people who don’t understand it or embrace it in their own lives.
This is especially true in the workplace.
I’ve been self-employed for over a decade now.
To a substantial degree, that is a preferable way of life for me.
But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how the alpha mentality would have a tendency to get me into trouble in a regular workplace environment. And it certainly causes ‘rifts’ for me in my professional career as a freelancer.
But this isn’t a bad thing, either.
Let me explain why.
Not Everyone Can Handle Straightforward Communication
Direct communication and to-the-point conversation aren’t something that a lot of people are used to.
I’ve realized that speaking my mind with such honesty, on a regular basis, often throws people for a loop.
A lot of people don’t know how to handle such straightforward communication without getting offended or triggered. This is especially true if the person you’re dealing with already has low self-confidence or self-worth issues.
It’s really especially true if someone’s trying to bullsh*t me or use passion aggression against me. Nowadays, it just doesn’t work—and I’m too direct to pretend like I don’t know it’s happening.
I have a zero-tolerance policy for passive aggression in my life, and I’ve noticed that this policy probably wouldn’t fly very well in a corporate salaried workplace environment. I’ve worked for a lot of passive-aggressive managers over the course of my life. I disliked all of them. Being passive-aggressive earns zero respect from me these days, because it shows me exactly how much of an indirect little b*tch someone really is.
And I have no time in my life to waste on people who persist in acting like little b*tches; especially after I’ve been direct with them and given them the chance to return my directness.
I’m to the point in my life where I always call out passive aggression in the most direct manner possible.
This actually earns me a lot of respect in my interpersonal affairs, in the sense that it usually doesn’t have to happen very many times before the other person either dips or shapes up.
Irregardless (yes, I consider it a real word)… in the day to day workings of a business, such an attitude tends to ruffle feathers.
So why am I saying this? Is this entire post just a rant about passive aggression and directness?
Not exactly. I’m writing this post because I’ve noticed something about the change in my communication style since I’ve embraced the alpha mentality. And to say that it’s thrown a wrench into a few of the leftover beta cogs (bad habits left over from my beta-minded days) of my life would be an understatement.
But I’ve also noticed how useful my new direct communication style is. But at the same time, I’ve noticed that it has taken me a while to acclimate to it and work out the kinks.
Direct Communication Is The True Way Of The Alpha – But Not Everyone Likes It
Even in my freelancing business, I’ve noticed a change in how I work with others. And I’ve noticed a trend that has, overall, been good for me.
But it’s also been difficult.
I’m not a salaried employee. All of my work is done on a contract basis.
And yet, I find that speaking my mind so pointedly and abruptly often has one of two different results.
Either the other person dislikes my direct communication when it’s pointed at them, and they discontinue working with me.
Or…
Mutual respect and boundaries are established and the project tends to go better than usual.
The problem is that mutual respect on such a level is difficult to find.
At first, some of this was due to my inexperience as a direct communicator. In all honesty, my earliest attempts at straightforward communication weren’t quite as ‘eloquent’ as they probably should have been.
Instead of a delicate dance of intentionally crafted words that landed the meaning of my intention home with the graceful elegance of a swan (albeit, an alpha swan), they were more like a sledgehammer… driving the words down the other person’s throat without providing any strategic ‘wiggle room’ for a face-saving retreat.
When you first embrace the alpha mentality, there tends to be a pendulum swing in how you communicate with others.
You go from communicating like a beta b*tch to being more of a straightforward asshole.
The problem is that the pendulum usually swings too far, too hard, and too violently because we are compensating for the passive behavior that we now recognize as problematic in our lives.
The result is that your communication can tend to fall on the harsher side until you learn to temper it with patience, understanding, and empathy.
This Raw, Straightforward Communication ‘Pendulum Swing’ Has Cost Me A Few Opportunities… But has it, really???
I’m confident that the harsher alpha mentality adjustments to my communication have cost me about half a dozen jobs over the course of the past year.
That is just straight facts.
In the beginning, this incited a sort of wild panic inside of me.
I found myself wondering if this was really the true way, or if I was just flying off the deep end and committing professional suicide.
Does being an alpha make you impossible to deal with? Do I need to go back to being passive so that people won’t think I’m such an asshole all the time?
I think these are fair questions. But I’ve been down this road for long enough at this point to give you a very pointed and direct answer.
The answer to both questions is no… but it also isn’t quite as simple as that.
And here is the real crux of the matter.
At the end of the day, a lot of social connections and acquaintance-level ‘friendships’ are held together by nothing but bullsh*t, faux feelings of goodwill, and a fear to say what’s really on the mind.
But that isn’t really such a bad thing, either. We live in a world where such a mentality is actually mainstream—and probably for good reason.
Not everyone is equipped for direct communication. And if given a choice, people usually tend not to air their grievances unless backed into a corner and not given any other option.
This feels better, safer, and more positive (or it seems to in the moment). Plus, it avoids the unpleasant feeling of confrontation—which a lot of people actually have trouble with.
(Spoiler alert; if you want to be truly alpha in your life, you’re going to need to learn to get over your fear of confrontation.)
I’ll be honest. It takes work effort and perseverance to get to the point where you can communicate as an alpha with enough self-awareness to be effective.
In other words, the goal actually isn’t to be an asshold.
The goal isn’t to be unlikeable or to be a dick.
The goal is to be effective and to cut out the bullsh*t so that you can conduct your business efficiently without wasting time on things that are being hidden behind faux goodwill and passive aggression.
I’ve had to learn a great deal of self-awareness to help ease that pendulum back into a place of balance… and to avoid smashing it into every situation where I detect even the faintest levels of bullsh*t, nonsense, passive aggression, or anything else I don’t like.
But this isn’t all bad, either. It’s a process of personal evolution that I’ve had to go through. I’ve had to learn to temper my quick straightforward tongue a bit, and to tame my jagged-edged direct communication with the bridle of wisdom and the filter of self-awareness.
When I make a mistake and engage direct communication without tempering it with kindness, I instantly regret it. I feel guilty. The empathetic part of me struggles with directness, because I legitimately don’t want to hurt anyone. That’s part of my personality type. But it’s also a part of my personality that I struggle with—because it is the same mechanism that used to let people walk all over me in life.
And that’s no good either.
So I practice, I make mistakes, I learn, and I get better at staying self-aware enough to balance direct communication with self awareness and kindness. And that’s really the goal.
How Has This New Direct Communication Style Impacted My Business?
On the upside, I’ve gotten really good at vetting new clients and negotiating contract terms. I’ve also gotten really good at finding new potential job opportunities.
Why?
Because my client turnover rate got pretty high there for a hot minute.
But while this higher client turnover might seem to be a problem at first, it has actually had a very unique upside.
The Biggest Upside To My Straightforward Communication Style Has Been An Increase In The Authenticity Of My Working Relationships
In my old life (my beta life), before I adopted the alpha mindset, my working relationships tended to be just positive enough to be tolerable. But, they were also highly frustrating.
I’ve since learned that these ‘average’ sorts of working relationships were the result of my beta-minded, conflict-averse thinking.
I wasn’t assertive enough to be straightforward and honest about the things that weren’t working for me. I also wasn’t assertive enough to demand the pay I really wanted, or to negotiate problems that were causing me added, undo frustration.
But since embracing the alpha mentality, I’ve moved on from the majority of these relationships.
I’ve realized that probably 90% of the clients I used to work for either won’t work with me anymore, or are so frustrating to me that I would now willingly walk away from the projects without looking back.
Why?
Because my tolerance for nonsense, frustration, inefficiency, and indirect communication has reached an all-time low. I’m just not interested in putting up with it anymore.
But this has had a rather interesting side-effect.
As I walk away from work relationships that do not fully satisfy me, I make myself available to find the types of relationships I truly want. It’s really not unlike the dating market.
If you’re wasting time on dating partners who aren’t good for you, your resources are going to get tied-up and you aren’t going to be putting as much energy into finding the right partner as you could be investing into the search.
So when I started walking away from what I would call ‘incompatible clients,’ or when a client would walk away from me because they didn’t like me being straightforward and direct with them, I started making myself completely available for clients who really vibed well with me.
And as a result, I’ve never been happier or more excited about my freelancing career.
I Also Earn More Than I Used To
Another side effect of embracing the alpha mentality is that I earn considerably more money than I used to.
Another trait within me that was destroyed along with my beta mentality, was the trait that kept me working for lower wages that I felt I deserved.
I’ve embraced an attitude where I would rather go hungry than to be underpaid.
And along with it, I’ve developed an attitude where I am deeply committed to working harder and delivering better results than I ever delivered as a beta-minded freelancer.
In other words, I work harder, charge more, earn more money, and do better work than I’ve ever done before.
My Straightforward Communication Style Has Also Had A Dramatic Impact On My Dating Life
My professional life isn’t the only area of life that has been affected by the new straightforward candor of my alpha communication habits.
My dating life and dating habits have also undergone a radical transformation, as I’ve embraced this new straightforward no-nonsense communication style.
When I was a younger, beta-minded man, I never realized how much of general, everyday conversation was actually just filled with useless bullsh!t.
When you determine to cut out the nonsense, a lot of the things you used to say as a beta suddenly become irrelevant.
If You’re Not Careful, This Will Also Make You Uninteresting
One potential negative side effect of direct alpha conversation is that it requires few words.
Subsequently, you can become a pretty boring person.
I’ve found that the best way to fill the void left by removing dumb sh*t in my conversations has been to replace it with meaningful things that most people don’t talk about.
For example: When I was younger, I used to take what my dating partners said really seriously. I would hang on their every word, and try to respond in ways that would impress them.
Obviously, this is a pure beta mentality. Sure, we can listen and take it seriously. But then, we need to ask ourselves a vital question.
Do I really care about this?
If not, then we have an obligation to change the topic to something more meaningful to us. This goes even deeper than trying not to pedestalize the other person. It actually speaks directly to our raw integrity, and to what we will or won’t invest in with our incredibly precious and valuable time.
My time isn’t valuable enough to listen to a woman gossip about their ex-boyfriend. That sh*t doesn’t interest me, so I just won’t go down that rabbit hole with her.
As an alternative: I will pick something out of her statement, and respond to it to take it to a level that I find valuable.
So if she says something like “my last boyfriend was such a narcissist. I’ll never date a narcissist again. He was just so emotionally abusive…”
See, I’ve heard this exact same speech so many times that I literally don’t care about it anymore. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard women tell me their version of this exact same story.
So as soon as they start, I’ll pick out a part of their story that has the potential for interesting, deeper conversation, and I’ll throw it back to them.
“You don’t want to date narcissists anymore? Good decision. What changes have you made in your life to avoid that kind of thing from happening again?”
See, what I did here was that I continued the conversation, but pushed it a level deeper. I want to hear about the habits she has formed. I want to hear something about the inner-workings of her problem-solving skills. That’s the sh*t that interests me, so that’s where I immediately take the conversation.
A Massive Upside To This Is That It Has Made Vetting Partners Extremely Easy
When you embrace the alpha mentality and cease to be afraid of losing potential partners, things get really, really f*cking simple.
This goes hand in hand with operating from a position of sexual abundance.
In other words, when I meet a new potential dating partner, I’m not emotionally wrapped up in the idea of some kind of relationship emerging. I’m not even concerned about whether we’re going to f*ck or not. I literally have no pony in the race. I’m just living my life, doing my thing, getting to know a new person.
I have no fear of rejection. I have no fear of being alone.
Why?
Because as an alpha, I’m operating from a position of sexual abundance.
It’s easy for me to find potential partners. It’s easy for me to have sex. It’s easy to get a girlfriend if I want one.
So since I’m not dating with a fear-based beta mentality, I’m free to be genuine, authentic, and straightforward (which, ironically, is the most attractive state to exist in).
In other words, there’s no hiding who I really am. I don’t give enough of a sh*t to bother with it. People either like me, or they don’t like me. And this is determined quite quickly.
The benefit to this is that I waste almost zero time chasing partners who aren’t really interested.
Why?
Because I absolutely do not chase.
I don’t need to.
I also don’t need to please anyone.
The straightforwardness of the alpha mentality empowers me to filter through potential dating partners quickly and efficiently.
What’s The Downside To Alpha-Style Direct Communication?
If there is any downside to this, it’s the fact that dating can sometimes feel like an uninteresting activity to engage in—even to me. When you cut out the bullshit, you realize that there isn’t much left to learn about most people.
This perhaps leads to the one true downside to dating with the straightforwardness of the alpha mentality.
There is zero drama.
This may sound like an upside. And truthfully, it is… especially if the goal is to live a rational, logical, orderly life.
Once you cut out the drama, you’re quickly going to realize how most humans don’t have sh*t to offer you that you’re truly going to be interested in.
This means that you need to be even more proactive in expanding your social networks and meeting new people, because the vast majority of people just aren’t that interesting.
All things considered, dating with the alpha mentality is a quiet and straightforward affair.
No drama. No games. No chasing. Zero tolerance for bullsh*t or nonsense. You’re working with a filter that works almost too well in removing partners who aren’t going to be good for you.
In Conclusion – Why Practice Straightforward Communication?
When you start to conduct business, date, and communicate with the direct communication style of the alpha mentality, you’ll inherit a lot of quiet time to assess your own thoughts, and debate the merits of your newfound ideology and its effects on your life.
In closing, I will just say this.
It takes time and practice to master alpha mentality communication.
It’s straightforward and honest. But it also requires a great deal of courage and inner strength.
At the same time, it also calls for a great deal of self-awareness, empathy, and kindness.
That’s all I have for this one. Go with grace, my friends, and never give up your power.
Until next time,
Joshua K. Sigafus